Offering Extended Hours and Free Parking
The public is invited for a cosmic adventure as the National Air
and Space Museum again hosts the Space Day global launch
celebration, to be held Thursday, May 5, at the Steven F.
Udvar-Hazy Center.
To encourage families to attend, the Smithsonian facility in
Chantilly, Va., will have extended hours for the day, 10 a.m. until
9 p.m. The program will offer hands-on exhibits, astronaut
appearances, live performances, tours, curator talks, stories for
children—even the chance to race balloon rockets and drive
Mars rovers.
Participants also will have the chance to win an array of
prizes, including a Bushnell telescope, round-trip tickets on
Independence Air and all-expense trips to Family Space Camp in
Huntsville, Ala.
Space Day was created in 1997 by Lockheed Martin Corporation,
which sponsors the event with more than 70 partners and associates
including the museum and NASA.
Parking at the Udvar-Hazy (pronounced OOD-var HAH-zee) Center,
usually $12 per vehicle, will be free all day.
Space Day is designed to encourage students to consider careers
in space exploration as they study math, science, engineering and
technology. A satellite broadcast of activities at the center,
combined with historic NASA footage, will be distributed to 140,000
schools across the United States and Canada. The theme of this
year's Space Day is "Return to the Moon," based on the latest
presidential goals for the U.S. space program.
“As the baby boomer generation looks toward retirement,
the demand for young scientists and engineers is expected to
increase at almost four times the rate of all other occupations,"
said Bob Stevens, Chairman, CEO and President of Lockheed Martin.
"The Space Day initiative seeks to inspire the next generation to
enter this vital career pipeline.”
For the first time, Space Day visitors to the Udvar-Hazy Center
will be able to explore the recently launched James S. McDonnell
Space Hangar, whose centerpiece is the refurbished
Enterprise—the only NASA space shuttle on display to the
public.
"The McDonnell Space Hangar shows in unique detail the scope of
space exploration history and that captures the imagination of
young people," said museum director Gen. J.R. "Jack" Dailey. "The
future engineers, designers, technicians, astronauts and educators
who come out for Space Day will be the ones to write the next
chapters of the story our museum tells."
The hangar is also home to the Gemini VII spacecraft, an
instrument ring segment from an unflown Saturn V rocket, a space
shuttle main engine, the mobile quarantine trailer that housed the
returned Apollo 11 crew, and scores of cruise missiles, satellites
and space telescopes. Among its hundreds of smaller artifacts are a
human-sized NASA android used for spacesuit testing and research
crystals formed in orbit.
More than 1,500 sixth-graders from Northern Virginia schools
will take part in the Space Day program at the Udvar-Hazy Center,
which kicks off with an opening ceremony featuring remarks by
former senator and astronaut John Glenn. Also taking part will be
the crew from future space shuttle mission STS-116, which will
focus on continued construction of the International Space
Station.
The satellite broadcast of the activities at the Udvar-Hazy
Center is available as an electronic lesson program for students in
grades 4 through 8; it is produced by the museum and the Fairfax
County (Virginia) Public Schools Department of Information
Technology.
Admission to the Udvar-Hazy Center and the museum's flagship
building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is free. The
museum operates a shuttle bus between the two locations from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m., with a round-trip ticket costing $12. Group discounts
are available.
Both facilities are open daily with the regular hours of 10 a.m.
to 5:30 p.m. (Closed Dec. 25.) The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is
located off Route 28 near Washington Dulles International
Airport.